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tune with the technology of his mission. Perhaps he had been shortsighted. Was it rationalization to suggest that the
adding machines could not readily multiply or divide numbers, do specialized conversions, or figure the cube root of
pi? A slide rule could do those things, and it had no battery to run down. Why hadn't he brought along a slide rule?
That would have been far more in keeping with the philosophy of the Holy Order of Vision. The lay powers of Earth
were using calculators whose usefulness would cease when their power sources expired. He, as a Brother, should be
showing his fellow man how to use slide rules that would function as long as mind and hands remained.
"I am a hypocrite," he murmured aloud. "May God correct and forgive me."
He looked at his watch he was finally getting into that habit! and set the elapsed-time counter. Of course
mattermission was supposed to be instantaneous, the Theory of Relativity to the contrary, but there was this waiting
time, and he might as well measure that. He liked to count things anyway. It was better than admitting that he was
nervous.
His eye caught the silver-colored band on his wrist. It had an elaborate decoration, like a modernistic painting done in
relief. No doubt that was to conceal the lenses and mechanisms within it. When it was necessary to hide something,
fit it into a complex container. As the crown-maker had done to conceal the amount of base metal diluting the value
of the supposedly pure gold crown of Hieron, ruler of the ancient city of Syracuse. Except that Archimedes had cried
"Eureka!" and found it, utilizing the principle of water displacement.
Probably the band was recording things now. How fortunate it could not record his thoughts! But what would happen
when he wished to perform a natural function? Maybe he could hold that wrist up over his head so the device couldn't
see anything. Yet suppose he did so, and suddenly heard it cry "Eureka!"?
He smiled at himself. Ridiculous mortal vanity! What did it matter what portion of his anatomy this device might
perceive? When the lay experts played back the molecules, they would quickly be bored by the minutiae of human
water displacements. Let the machine capture and contain all the information it could hold, until its cup brimmethed
over.
Abruptly it struck him: a cup! This bracelet was like the Cup of the Tarot, containing not fluid but information. And
the little transceivers they were Wands. His watch was the emblem of a third suit, Disks, for it was essentially a
disk with markings, and hands pointing to the time of day that in Nature was shown by the original golden disk of the
sun. Three suits. What might be the fourth, that of Swords?
That stymied him for a moment. Swords were representative of trouble, violence; he had no such weapon on him.
Swords were also the suit of air, and while he had air about him, this didn't seem to apply. The sword was also a
scalpel, signifying surgery or medicine, and of course there was the cutting edge of thought That was it! The
sharpest, most tangible thought was the symbolism of numbers, of mathematics. The calculator! Thus he had a full
roster of Tarot symbolism. Too bad he hadn't brought along a Tarot deck; that could have distracted him very nicely.
Brother Paul sat on a stove, waiting for the shipment to ship. After all that rush, they might at least have gotten on
with it promptly once he was inside the capsule! But perhaps there were technical things to do, like switching
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coaches onto other sidings or whatever, lining everything up for the big jump. It was difficult to imagine how, in this
nineteenth-century setting, he could be jolted to a world perhaps fifty light-years distant. He should have thought to
inquire exactly where Planet Tarot was; that seemed much more important now that he was on the verge of jumping
there. Was a jump of seventy light-years more hazardous than a jump of twenty light-years? The concept of
instantaneous travel bothered him in a vague way, like the discomfort of an incipient stomach disorder that might or
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